Soft
by sirrryesssirrr
Summary: Life with Quinn. Mercedes/Quinn friendship.


Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended.

Prompt used: _Alarm clocks and "Whenever I'm alone with you, you make me feel like I am home again."_

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Just about anybody can tell you that waking up at five o'clock in the morning – _every morning_ – is brutal. But Quinn does it every day and has been since school ended last year. Her alarm clock goes off in her room before the sun is even up. At first, it got aggravating because - hello! - it's 5 AM and your alarm clock is ringing and you're walking around your room. The walls aren't exactly thick around here. Then when she's done, she goes running and by the time everybody is just up for breakfast, she's all dressed and showered, ready to go. Eventually, everyone got used to her morning routine and stopped caring about it.

No one really got why she did that except for Mom. Probably a mother-to-mother type of thing that only they understood. It made sense that she'd think about doing something else since for a while, all she'd known was be pregnant and hormonal and be a bitch about her life. She got away with doing stuff like that because she still followed house rules. She did what she had to do, so no one fussed at her.

Mom said that it was probably because this was her last chance for redemption to do something with her second chances were given to sixteen year old girls who got knocked up and had to give the baby up for adoption.

Quinn got lucky with the whole babygate because Miss Corcoran made it an open adoption. Once, Miss C. and Beth visited the house over the summer. Quinn gave them a tour and showed them her room. There was this large empty spot in the corner of the room where a crib would've been. No one really said anything about it, but that was the first and the last time that Miss C. came back to the house with Beth. Quinn still got to visit her across town but she understood Miss C's worries about taking Beth back or anything like that. Personally, that doesn't sound like something she would do, but it's Quinn Fabray, after all. She'd do just about anything, if she really had to.

That time when Miss C. visited, she was downstairs with Mom and Daddy talking and Quinn was in her room, holding Beth in her arms. Quinn didn't know anybody was watching her. But you could see that when she held Beth, she looked like she belonged in Quinn's arms. Like Quinn was meant to be a mom. Quinn was singing to her while she cradled the baby. She just whispered the words, but you could still hear it. She held Beth close and you could see that she didn't really want to let go. When Miss C. came back upstairs, that moment was gone and Quinn was smiling again, not a tear in her eye.

When Miss C. and Beth left, she was quiet the whole time until she whispered something.

_"Whenever I'm alone with you, you make me feel like I am home again."_

She didn't stay to see the car turn the corner, just went back upstairs.

These days, she's trying to get back into the Cheerios. How well that's gonna go, nobody's really sure. Kurt thinks that it can happen because Quinn's a bitch and bitches get their way around William McKinley. It feels like a long shot, but you can't really underestimate Quinn, especially after living with her for a while. You have to give it to her. The girl is smart even if she can be really mean and manipulative sometimes.

It's hard to imagine that Quinn even has a softer side to her because all she's been to the general school population is this mean girl that's out for everyone's blood, no thanks to Coach Sylvester and trying to be popular.

But days like that time she got to hold Beth in her room lets me know it's real. It's real because I've been witness to it. No one will believe me, definitely not Kurt or anybody else in Glee. But every morning, she's up at 5 AM to the sound of her alarm clock and gets ready for her day. If you stay real quiet and you just listen, before she does anything else that morning, you can hear her walk around her room singing the same words she sang to Beth. It makes her morning – _every morning_ – not so unbearable.


End file.
